Gadgetory

hey I'm Matthew Muscovy AK from C net and we are going to take a look at the Denon AV re-400 this is a new 7.1 AV receiver that's selling for six hundred dollars and the big chains this year is Denon focused on making AV receivers easier to set up now that's a mission I can get behind as AV receivers are notoriously frustrating to set up and down on does make some worthwhile progress the biggest change is the setup assistant an on-screen guide that walks you through the setup process the first time you fire up the AV receiver telling you how to hook up your speakers and get all your devices properly configured another change is Denon's new push in speaker connectors on the back now they're definitely easier to use if you're sticking with bare speaker wire although I found them a little bit more cramped when using banana plugs finally the included remote is the same as last year's but it's still the best AV receiver remote that's currently available buttons are logically laid out and they're nice and big rather than the confusing jumble of tiny buttons that most receiver remotes have now while all those improvements are nice the AVR 400 still misses the mark somewhat when it comes to ease of use for one it's still a giant metal box which makes it a pain to physically handle and it's not exactly the nicest looking addition to your living room and that size would be a little more tolerable except Marantz offers the NR 1403 which is nearly half the size $200 cheaper and looks a lot nicer the AVR 400 is also missing both bluetooth and Wi-Fi to wireless technologies that offer a lot of convenience Bluetooth works with the vast majority of smartphones and tablets and it's the easiest way to wirelessly stream music so it's frustrating that it's not included on a $600 receiver the lack of Wi-Fi means you need to connect the receiver using Ethernet to use any of its networking features and that's not always easy for every living room scenario now both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are included on the onkyo TX NR 62 six and that currently costs $100 less the rest of the AVR e400 features are solid there are six HDMI inputs should be enough for almost every home theater the networking features are also respectable including built-in airplay DLNA Pandora Spotify and internet radio we also had resident audiophile Steve Guttenberg listen to the sound quality and overall he was impressed the Denon has a rich sound and plenty of power to fill our medium sized listening room he also compared it directly to Yamahas rxv 475 in pioneers vsx 8 to 3 and while he did end up preferring both of those receivers especially the Yamaha they all performed pretty similarly so a lot of it comes down to taste but to sum it up the AVR 400 is ultimately asking you to pay extra for its simplicity but I don't think it goes far enough to justify that cost especially without Bluetooth and Wi-Fi which offer a lot of real-world convenience the AVR 400 is a very solid receiver when judged on its own but most buyers will get a better value from the alternatives I'm Matthew Muscovy AK and this is the den on AV re 400